things are not looking good

I checked on the pots of bulbs in my under the sunroom garden and things are not looking good.

The dutch iris are almost two feet tall! All of them!!! In all six pots!!!!! The apricot tulips and pink mix daffodils are beginning to sprout so there might still be hope for them.

What to do?

I’ll have to bring the irises up into the sunroom where they’ll get light. Like I have room for them in there. Do the powers that be not realize I have carnations and snapdragons and stocks and painted daisies and who knows what else to start going in there next month? Hmmph!!!

As for the tulips and daffodils… I’m going to take a really close look at them this afternoon. I might move them into the garage where it will be colder. That should hold off any more growth. Not that the crawl space under the sunroom isn’t chilly. It is. Just not freezing cold. Maybe freezing cold is what they needed.

I have to say I’m a bit disappointed. I was so hoping that the crawl space would be usable. All that space going to waste…. The garage is already full. You should see the pots and pots and pots of lilies in there. I’ll have to stack stuff!

Comments

All this nice warm weather doesn’t necessarily mean a worse freeze than usual. I’m being optimistic.
…then again my daffodils will probably have finished flowering in the next few weeks (they’re budding now). :P

As there is little you can do about them I’d try & enjoy them while you can! It seems that all over the Northern hemisphere this winter has been quite warm..
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You say you will have to stack stuff .. well I’ve been doing that for years! You’ve seen photos of our bedroom window sill & kitchen window sill as well, I sometimes have to go as high as 4 tiers! Most of the time I try to limit the number of tiers to 3!

Not much comfort to you, nor help, but none of my bulbs in pots are sprouting yet – probably more exposed to the outside temperatures and we have had some nippy weather (tonight’s forecast to get down to – now don’t laugh – minus 3C which is chilly for us!) Sounds like the “under the sunroom” garden is too sheltered?
Love your cat photos though….and to think I only 4!

Firstly, regarding the cats…. Well, pictures of them look a whole lot better than pictures of the tall, spindly, yellow things that call themselves iris leaves. They’re the colour of celery hearts (although this morning, I’m seeing just a hint of lime green). Some of them are relatedd, seeingreen. The main photo is of Nerissa. The first smaller one is of Constance, his (yes, Nissy is a boy) sister and littermate. The second is of Calista, his older brother (yeah… I know…) and the third is his mama Madison. Unfortunately, Calista & Maddy are no longer with us. The fourth small photo is of Seville… brother by adoption. And LouiseM, we have twelve! Not that that was planned. Maddy was abandoned in our subdivision. When we first saw her, Calista was a year old and she had the litter with Nissy & Constance in a neighbour’s wood pile. They were feral so it took a while to gain their trust but they’re ours now. And yes, all have been neutered or spayed.

Now to the flowers…. I brought the six pots of irises into the sunroom and they’re starting to green up a bit. Yesterday they were yellow. I’m hoping they’ll bloom. I left the pots of daffodils and tulips in the crawl space as they’re only beginning to sprout. I did put them up against the outside wall though. It’s -10C today and if this winter weather persists, maybe it will be cold enough down there to keep them from growing any more. But I plan no checking them DAILY, just in case. If they sprout any more, I’ll take them into the garage for the rest of winter. The irises were too far gone to do this. If I have to stack them Amarlyis, my stacking will not be as well organized as yours. When I stack in the garage, I stack… literally… one pot on top of another. The oriental lilies almost never show their noses in the garage, as they emerge later than most lilies, so I’ll stack double up on those. Of course, once things start to grow, my kind of stacking is no longer an option. I need to build me some sturdy table structures for in there, methinks.

Sweet kitties. I just lost my Raggamuffin kitty this week. He was the sweetest cat I’ve ever seen. He always came out to the garden with me and followed me around. He was only about two years old. The sadest part is, his death was so senseless.

We decided to give him a bath with Sargent’s Gold shampoo for cats and dogs. It’s supposed to be even safe for kittens, but I found out too late that those shampoos are actually toxic to cats and even small dogs. The animal hospitals have seen a lot of deaths due to these shampoos and it kills them so quickly that by the time you realize that something is wrong, it’s usually too late. Their organs are already shutting down. I’ve used baby shampoo and chamomile shampoo on my cats before and I’ve never had any problems,,,of course they aren’t made with any toxic ingredients. Please make sure you never use these products on your pets. I wish I didn’t.

I am so sorry, Loratika. What a horrible thing to happen. You must miss him so much.

We don’t (and after hearing what happened to you, never will) use flea shampoos. When needed, I dab them all with something we get from the vet… can’t think of what it’s called but it smells of bitter almonds and is applied to the backs of their necks. When I was a child, we had a cat named Puss-in-Boots. Living in Thunder Bay, he never had fleas… too cold, can you believe it? Anyway, when we moved to Nova Scotia, he got them. And it turned out that he was actually allergic to them. So we tried a store bought flea collar but found he was allergic to that, as well. His neck became all inflamed. Poor little guy. Ever since then, I’ve never really trusted stuff like that unless it comes directly from the vet.

We don’t even buy ‘regular’ cat nip. I get it from a friend who grows it organically or from the health food store (where it is meant for human consumption in teas). I’m going to try growing some this year myself. We’ll see what happens. In the past, the cats have always eaten it so quickly it has never had a chance to grow. But now, I’ve got a cage…

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